Efforts that connect police to the community in which they serve help to reduce encounters that lead to extrajudicial killings by police.

Efforts that connect police to the community in which they serve help to reduce encounters that lead to extrajudicial killings by police.

In Darren Wilson’s grand jury testimony, he describes Michael Brown, an unarmed teen, as a “demon.” After he fired the first shot, Wilson says he heard a “grunting, like aggravated sound” coming from the teenager. He explains, “You could tell he was looking through you. There was nothing he was seeing.” After firing 12 rounds, Wilson eventually shot Brown in the head, killing him.

In a 911 report, a caller related that someone, possibly a child was pointing “a pistol” at random people in a Recreation Center. The caller clarified that the gun was “probably fake.” According to the responding officers, they approached 12-year-old Tamir Rice, ordering him to hold up his hands. Tamir reached to his waistband and grasped a bb gun. In a matter of seconds, one of the officers fired two shots, fatally hitting Rice once in the torso. Footage was released of the officers tackling the bereaved 14-year-old sister of Rice after they shot her 12-year-old brother. Rice’s mother said that a friend had given him the toy gun to play with minutes before the police arrived.

In these descriptions we see fewer teenagers and more vicious animals. Many extrajudicial killings of Black people share similar dehumanizing stories. Policy makers and community members need to shift this pervasive negative narrative. Micro-place community policing is one solution.

Project Longevity in Connecticut, Operation Ceasefire in Boston, and lesser-known initiatives in Chicago and Cincinnati are organize to reduce the homicide victimization and gang violence among young people in these areas, with the help of local law enforcement and community partners. However, these programs also have unseen potential to increase police-community relationships and humanize black lives in the eyes of law enforcement. Community members not only patrol with police but also are considered equal partners.

Project Longevity is a community-oriented policing strategy to reduce gang violence in three of Connecticut’s major cities: New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford. It is modeled after successful efforts implemented by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and Operation Ceasefire: Boston Gun Project. Connecticut has seen dramatic declines in police and civilian violence after the initial implementation of this program.

Project Longevity directs federal and state spending to the most vulnerable communities in these cities with the purpose of steering at-risk youth and repeat offenders away from violence. A broad array of social services (housing, educational opportunities, addiction and mental/health care) are offered to those who want to end the cycle of community violence and gang activity – with the option of “receiv[ing] the full attention of the law” the next time any crime occurs.

Longevity combines social services, law enforcement, and community involvement to target crime and positively influence dynamics between residents and the police. Key to this strategy is a quarterly “call-in,” an intervention that combines local, state, and federal level law enforcement; community members; service providers; parents; and members of the clergy.

According to Tiana Hercules, “They speak to these young men and in some cases young women at the call-in and explain to them the consequences of further gun violence in the city of Hartford. Essentially, the message is put the guns down or the next body that drops in the city or person to get shot is going to receive the full focus of law attention. And not only yourself, but also those who you run with.” Violent crime in Connecticut’s three big cities after Project Longevity has decreased nearly 15 percent and crime in the state has decreased 10 percent, twice the national average. Longevity is credited with half of this overall cut in statewide violent crime.

The problem of police brutality in the United States is one of police accountability, but not in the conventional understanding of the term. The typical hypothesis is that once law enforcement is vigorously policed they will be held to a higher standard, decreasing the likelihood of police excess. This is the motivation behind the Obama administration’s $75 million push for mounted body cameras nationwide. Perhaps if Darren Wilson were monitored, he would not have so easily killed Mike Brown, or so the story goes. However, history teaches us that this conventional way of policing the police may be misplaced. In the trial of LAPD officers who beat Rodney King in 1991, videotape evidence was argued away because it did not present the full picture. This year, apparently indisputable video was refuted in the recent police killings of Eric Garner and John Crawford.

Instead of external accountability, police officers need to develop a greater sense personal accountability to the vulnerable in communities where they serve. This need for personal accountability stems from a racial and spatial separation that keeps communities and police isolated. This gap reinforces the biases that keep youth like Mike Brown and Tamir Rice dehumanized by the very people tasked with their protection. Programs that put law enforcement and communities in greater contact should be encouraged. There is no better policing mechanism than one’s conscience. Working closely with residents provides information that can prevent dangerous encounters with police, simply by police intimately knowing community members and their families. More importantly, these programs humanize members of vulnerable communities to law enforcement. Darren Wilson was wrong. There are no demons, just police officers isolated from communities.

Andrew Lindsay, a 2015 Truman Scholarship Finalist in Massachusetts, is a junior at Amherst College, where he is an active member of the Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network and studies Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought.

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It’s time for Congress to take an evidence-based and public health focused approach to the epidemic of opioid overdoses.

It’s time for Congress to take an evidence-based and public health focused approach to the epidemic of opioid overdoses.

Opioid overdose is an epidemic in the United States. Drug overdose death rates have more than tripled since 1990, with the vast majority of these deaths attributable to an increase in the prescription and sale of opioid medications. The death rate from heroin overdose doubled between 2010 and 2012, and young people are now more likely to die from drug overdose than from motor vehicle crashes.

These statistics may be surprising, but their causes are familiar – commonly abused prescription opioid medications include names such as Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet, or codeine, as well as the illicit drug heroin, which creates similar pain-relieving effects. Prescription drugs are often considered a “gateway” to heroin use as heroin addiction often begins as a cheaper alternative to prescription painkillers.

In March 2014, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) introduced the Stop Overdose Stat (SOS) Act to create a federal plan for preventing fatal drug overdoses and prioritizing community- and state-based efforts for the development of best practices. The SOS Act would provide federal support for overdose prevention programs, which can include training bystanders, law enforcement, and first responders in recognizing signs of overdose, seeking medical assistance, or administering naloxone. Naloxone is a life-saving medication that reverses the effects of heroin or opioid prescription overdose. As of December 2014, twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have removed legal barriers to provider prescription and layperson administration of naloxone. Additionally, 20 states and the District of Columbia have established Good Samaritan protection, which grants immunity from arrest for calling 911 to seek medical assistance in the event of overdose.

The SOS Act, cosponsored by 39 legislators, approaches opioid prevention and treatment through a public health and health equity lens. While no socioeconomic or demographic group is immune to the abuse of prescription drugs or heroin (the most dramatic increases have occurred among white, middle-aged women in rural areas), urban areas with large African American populations are still where the majority of overdoses are happening. The SOS Act would create a grant program administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that gives priority to community organizations working to prevent overdose in high-risk populations.

The SOS Act would also create a mechanism for detailed reporting of overdose data for the development of best practices for preventing overdose deaths. It would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop a national plan to be submitted to Congress within 180 days of enactment that incudes a public health campaign, recommendations for expanding overdose prevention programming, and recommendations for legislative action.

The bill was closed out of the 113th Congress, but should be reconsidered in the current session as the issue builds momentum in both Democratic- and Republican-led states. The re-introduction of the SOS Act is an opportunity for Congress to take immediate action in responding to a significant public health issue with a bipartisan solution. States are implementing evidence-based laws to address the worsening overdose epidemic. It is time for the federal government to follow suit.

Emily Cerciello is the Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network Senior Fellow for Health Care, and a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Millennials, born between 1984 and 2004, hold a unique role in the debate, as the proposed Keystone pipeline has surfaced as a larger symbol in energy, climate change, and economic policy wars. Young people across the country view this issue as a literal line in the sand – rejection of the pipeline would serve as the ultimate indication of moving away from dependence on fossil fuels towards clean energy technologies. Millennials not only believe that clean energy investment is vital to our economic future, but they also view this transformation as one of the defining features of our generation.

Young people have also been at the forefront of climate activism, organizing XL Dissent, the largest student-led protest at the White House in a generation. This strong millennial support was clear at my university last year, when Beyond Coal, a student group organized under the Sierra Club Student Coalition, pressured the University of Georgia to shut down its coal-fired boiler, the single largest source of pollution in the city. The key policy change was confirmed in September, after students put incredible amounts of pressure on the administration​.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been fond of noting that no energy bill has been passed in the last seven years, therefore articulating his vision for why Keystone is necessary. With arguments for jobs and oil independence falling flat, McConnell and others in Congress should instead push for an energy bill that supports the generational shift in our energy infrastructure. We need congressional leadership to advance policies in stronger energy efficiency standards, incentives for better fuels, and electric vehicle incentives to widen the market. Former Republican Treasury Secretary George Schultz has even proposed a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend system.

Most pressingly, the new Senate majority has vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency’s new carbon emissions standards for new and existing power plants, a policy that would allow the U.S. to honor its international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent. My home state of Georgia, home to some of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation, is required to reduce carbon emissions by 44 percent. These carbon emissions standards represent a potential milestone shift in job creation and alternative energy opportunities and must stay in place.

As the fastest growing workforce demographic, millennials can combine their strong support for clean energy with their foundation in activism and technological advancement, and lead the industry and its politics forward in ways that past generations could not. Indeed they can remind Congress that if you aren’t a climate denier, you shouldn’t be voting like one. It’s come time for a generational shift in the types of energy we use, and a generational shift in political engagement will make it happen.

Torre Lavelle is the Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment. She is majoring in ecology and environmental economics at the University of Georgia.

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Allowing guns on campus won't reduce sexual assault on campus - instead, it will increase the risk of homicide.

Allowing guns on campus won't reduce sexual assault on campus - instead, it will increase the risk of homicide.

Two years ago, Republican leaders released a post-mortem analysis of the 2012 election in an effort to better understand how they lost the single woman’s vote by 36 percent. The 100-page report recommended that GOP lawmakers do a better job listening to female voters, remind them of the party’s “historical role in advancing the women’s rights movement,” and fight against the “so-called War on Women.” Look no further than recent GOP-led efforts to expand gun rights on college campuses under the guise of preventing campus sexual assault as evidence that conservative lawmakers have failed to take their own advice.

Today, lawmakers in at least 14 states are pushing forward measures that would loosen gun regulations on college campuses. In the last few days a number of them have seized upon the growing public outcry over campus sexual assault to argue that carrying a gun would prevent women from being raped. (So far they’ve been silent on how we might prevent young men – who, of course, would also be allowed to carry a gun – from attempting to rape women in the first place.)

Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore of Nevada recently told The New York Times: “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.” (Really? Hot little girls?) And as the Times highlighted, Florida Representative Dennis Baxley jumped on the “stop campus rape” bandwagon recently when he successfully lobbied for a bill that would allow students to carry loaded, concealed weapons. “If you’ve got a person that’s raped because you wouldn’t let them carry a firearm to defend themselves, I think you’re responsible,” he said.

Let’s be clear. People aren’t raped because they aren’t carrying firearms. They are raped because someone rapes them. What a sinister new twist on victim blaming. As if anything positive could come from adding loaded weapons to the already toxic mix of drugs, alcohol, masculine group think, and the rape culture endemic in college sports and Greek life on campuses around the country.

These lawmakers have appropriated the battle cry of students who are demanding more accountability from academic institutions to prevent and respond to campus sexual assault. It’s a vain attempt to advance their own conservative agenda of liberalizing gun laws. This is an NRA agenda, not a women’s rights agenda. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, each of the lawmakers who have supported such legislation has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). They have enjoyed endorsements from the NRA during election years and some – including Fiore and Baxley – received campaign contributions from the organization.

These lawmakers are pointing to the demands of a handful of women who have survived sexual assault and are advocating for liberalized campus gun laws. The experiences of these students are real and deserve to be heard and considered as we debate how to make campuses safer. We must also recognize that these students are outliers. Surveys have shown that nearly 80 percent of college students say they would not feel safe if guns were allowed on campus, and according to the Times, 86 percent of women said they were opposed to having weapons on campus. And for good reason.

Research shows that guns do not make women safer. In fact, just the opposite is true. Over the past 25 years, guns have accounted for more intimate partner homicides than all other weapons combined. In states that that require a background check for every handgun sale, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide for women by 500 percent. And women in the United States are 11 times more likely than women from other high-income countries to be murdered with a gun. Guns on college campuses would only make these statistics worse.

If the GOP wants to show they care about women – or at the very least care about their votes – this is just one of the realities they need to acknowledge. And they need to listen to the experiences of all women who have experienced sexual assault – like those who have created the powerful Know Your IX campaign – not just those who will help advance their NRA-sponsored agenda.

Andrea Flynn is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Follow her on Twitter @dreaflynn.